Spongemen Squarewatch

Quite possibly the best Watchmen parody I've seen:

Watch till the end for Alan Moore's reaction.

Monday Memories #45 - Watchmen Trade Paperback

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Watchmen Reworked

Recently discovered this tumblr: Watchmen GN Manips where the author fools around with one of the best comics ever like so:

Just genius!

Mega-City Graffiti

Reading Judge Dredd: Day of Chaos: Fourth Faction over the weekend and I came across this:

Check out the Watchmen logo and, on the left, some graffiti that accompanies it:

There's a small plug for Ma-Ma, the villain from the excellent Dredd film and a slight dig at the Watchmen film all in one panel!

You gotta love 2000AD.

Can Someone Buy Me This, Please?

The original art from the covers of Watchmen is going to be auctioned off in February.

I've already got someone coming round to remove one kidney, a lung and anything else I can spare to put up on eBay to raise funds and I'll be going round my friends with the begging bowl over the next couple of days, once I've recovered from the surgery.

If anybody else wants to send me some money, please visit ineedtheoriginalcoverartofwatchmentwaymorethanyoudo.co.uk to make a donation.

Perusing Previews - August 2012

Subtlety - noun - 1) the state or quality of being subtle; delicacy 2) a fine distinction or the ability to make such a distinction 3) something subtle 4) a word never used at Eros Comix.

We've Had Before Watchmen: Comedian...

How about Post(-op) Watchmen: Comedian?

Good work!

Pinched from CBR's Comic-Con Cosplay Round-up.

You Don't Want THAT On Toast

Not surprisingly, I wasn't the only one to pick up on the Watchmen toaster:

but the guys over at Let's Be Friends Again do a much better job with it. Click the picture to see the rest of the strip.

Who Toasts The Watchmen?

Some people believe that Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Elvis and others held dear to them have appeared on toast.

Some comic fans hold Watchmen in high esteem, perhaps even in some form of reverential awe and we all know how they've reacted to DC's plans for Before Watchmen.

I wonder how they're going to react to the news of Dynamic Force's Watchmen branded toasters.

From the article:

""Dynamic Forces is excited to work with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to release these collectible image toasters that capture the spirit of some of Warner Bros.' most admired properties and timeless brands," President of Dynamic Forces, Nick Barrucci said via press release."

Because nothing says literary deconstruction of the superhero archetypes like a slice of toast.

Please, please let this be a joke.

Two Men Walk Into The LA Times Festival Of Books...

...and set up a panel talking about Before Watchmen and one of them, Jim Lee, says

"I guarantee you that every one of these creators that is working on these books will outdo or match the original,"

to which the only sensible response can be:

Before Watchmen

From nerdreamer

With everybody else weighing in on DC's recently announced Before Watchmen books, I figured I'd throw out my own thoughts for your delectation.

We know now that the books are going to form a prequel with stories set before and (possibly) during the main Watchmen story rather than as a sequel continuing from where the original finished. That, at least, is some small comfort.

I've posted before about any prequel / sequel and how I'd react and while I'm definitely of the opinion that a sequel would be bad, I'm still unsure as to the worth of any stories set in that world. If you'll pardon me for quoting myself, I said:

"To make any sort of connection, to make it worth the label of a Watchmen spin-off, prequel or sequel, the story would at the very least have to take place in the same world. And if it takes place in the same world, it's going to be compared with the original, and I think we all know how that's going to turn out."

and I think that still stands.

Watchmen 0.1

We all know Watchmen was originally conceived as starring the Charlton heroes that DC had acquired around the time Moore and Gibbons started work on it, yeah? And that after DC decided they wanted to keep using the Charlton characters, Moore set about creating his own analogs for them which became the characters we all know and love in what many consider to be one of the best comic books ever.

Well, what do you get if you add months of internet chatter and rumour around a proposed Watchmen sequel / series of prequels to a comic nerd currently teaching himself how best to use layers in Photoshop?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . .

A Very Alan Moore Christmas

I hope Santa brought you what you asked for rather than what you deserved. I had a bunch of graphic novels from my lovely wife including some collections that I've been meaning to pick up for years:

The first of the Tom Strong trades and the two Tomorrow Stories collections. When America's Best Comics first came out, I pretty much stuck with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as there's only so much money to go round. Since then, it's always been in the back of my mind to pick these up.

Talking of Mr Moore's work, I checked my news feeds the other day and Bleeding Cool have revealed the first character work for the forthcoming Watchmen prequels . . . which I had posted below but have removed since Bleeding Cool had a letter from DC . . . and I really don't want to piss off the lawyers.

I still want this to be a complete hoax but it's looking a little more likely that DC are going to go ahead and do it. That Bleeding Cool gets the scoop on this just adds to the bad taste it leaves in my mouth.

And yet, perhaps, sometimes things should be allowed to end.

Watchmen 2 - The First Pages Revealed

You can't keep anything a secret on the internet, we all know that. With all the talk of Watchmen sequels, prequels and spin-offs, it wasn't long before some pencil art started appearing . . .

Click the picture to go to the first of three full pages of new Watchmen art, my friends.

Watchmen 2. Again.

A couple of weeks ago I put up a post about the rumours flying around the net about a Watchmen sequel or prequel or series of prequels that DC are apparently planning to announce and produce sometime next year.

Following that post, I set up a Google Alert for a couple of keywords around the subject and the links have flooded in.

Comics Alliance threw together a bunch of things they'd heard on Twitter with people mostly chiming in about how ridiculous the whole concept was - well, all except Rob Liefeld who's all for it if Dave Gibbons approves!

Topless Robot cover it as well while over at MTV Geek, Alex Zalben is positively salivating at the thought of some continuation / exploration of the Watchmen characters:

"So if we imagine that we’re not getting different events, so much as Silver Age set stories of the original Watchmen characters, why wouldn’t that be great – in the right hands, of course? We LOVE the characters in Watchmen, that’s why the book has had such a lasting and continuing aspect. Why not spend a bit more time with them on the comic book page?"

And he's not the only one. TheOptimist over at Comic Vine has put together a post where they not only say they're up for a Watchmen prequel but also a sequel as a "fully developed 12 issue mini-series detailing an entirely new saga featuring all the characters brought together once more for a new challenge." TheOptimist also challenges that issue of Alan Moore not being involved in any way and how that would affect fans' opinions:

"I'd first like to address the issue of Alan Moore. While perhaps I misread the tone of those times I encounter his commentary on the modern comics community, Alan Moore is one of those creators that I find to have the most negative attitude on the whole business. While his rationale may be supported by personal opinion and even some passionate evidence, his attitudes mirror that of a basher and a troll. Certainly this allowable, however, my appreciation for Alan's past work does not make him immune to my standard reaction to such dismissive and rude behavior, which is typically to respectfully disagree and then distance myself from that commentator in search of people looking for a more creative approach. If Alan hates the community so much, he should use his apparently omnipotent powers as the God of all things to do something about it."

Is it me or does that last sarcastic sentence not really tie up with their approach of "respectfully disagree"? TheOptimist then offers up ideas of what can be done with the characters; they're all as horrible as the ideas I threw off the top of my head in my original post.

Watchmen Sequel?

The idea of a Watchmen sequel has been floating around for a year or two now and Timothy Callahan over at CBR tackles the question, posed by a reader, of "How do you feel about the prospect of "Watchmen" spin-offs in general and about Darwyn Cooke's upcoming effort in particular?"

Of course, the question takes for granted that a) there will be a spin-off and b) that Cooke is going to be connected to it in some way. Before tackling that question, Callahan offers up something that's worth remembering:

"Alan Moore himself talked about telling more stories in the Watchmen universe. He would have written a Minutemen miniseries, had he not scuffled with DC and ended his tenure there. "Watchmen" was not, at the time, or even for a few years after, regarded as a monolithic masterpiece. It was just a comic. A really good one."

It's very easy to have a knee-jerk reaction about a sequel to Watchmen, particularly as we can be 99.99999% certain that Moore will have absolutely nothing to do with it and will pour laconic scorn over it as soon as someone tells him. If he's not going to be doing it - and Dave Gibbons has sort of said that DC shouldn't do it - then no-one should, right?

Watchmen Poster

The rewiring work that's been done on our house recently forced me to move a whole bunch of stuff and have a bit of a clear out. One of the things I found was an issue of Arken Sword from 1988 or so that a friend of mine gave me, containing an interview with Dave Gibbons. It also had a picture featuring the Watchmen characters, including Rorschach in his original outfit:

I think the overcoat and hat works better in retrospect!

The Grant Morrison Guide To Writing

And if it's okay to poke fun at Watchmen yesterday, then I guess it's okay to chuckle at this bloke:

Heh!

Kill Your Heroes

Or at least allow them to be mocked and laugh at them:

The Paint Watchmen - excellent stuff.

I'll Take The Money

Edited Oct 2012 - I've amended this post as I'm sick of people searching for this bloody picture and ending up here which skews my popular posts results no end. If it keeps happening, I'm deleting this thing.

Headline at the BBC News site: Roy L i c h t e n s t e i n painting fetches $42.6m at auction.

Really?


$42.6 MILLION?! For that picture? When the original art of Page 1 of Watchmen is (currently) only $6,500?

I seriously do not understand the art world.